The Hero
with a
Thousand Faces
Joseph CampbellMan and His
Symbols
Carl JungThe
Golden Bough
Sir James George FrazierMyths to
Live By
Joseph CampbellTransformations
of Myth Through Time
Joseph
CampbellThe World of
Myth
David Adams LeemingThe Power of Myth
Joseph Campbell and Bill MoyersThe Eternal
Drama: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology
Edward
F. Edinger

Questions and
Answers(?)

There's
more to a hero than you
might think. Click on any of the questions below to see my response.

Carl Jung
and Joseph Campbell are two of the most prominent explorers of the
psychoanalytical and mythological origins for human and social
behavior.

Carl
Jung expanded the work of Sigmund Freud and the unconscious mind to
emphasize
the mythological forces working within the individual to shape his or
her
personality. Jung formed the concept of archetype and collective
unconscious to
explain the commonality of dream images and situations found in all
people. Jung believed individual and social behavior and thought have
their roots in a
common palette of characters and situations the mind retains from early
human
consciousness development. To Jung, the archetypal hero represents the
psyche's
quest for individuation, the process that makes each person unique.

Jospeph
Campbell built on Carl Jung's concept of the collective unconscious to
encompass
all the world's mythologies. Campbell studied the world's religions,
art, and
stories and discovered common threads throughout all, including the
hero. Campbell believed that mythology is the collective "dream" of
mankind, the "song of the universe." Campbell's work highlights
mankind's common search, both personally and socially, for meaning and
truth
through the ages.

Simply put,
an archetype is a recurring pattern of character, symbol, or situation
found in
the mythology, religion, and stories of all cultures. In the context of
archetypes, Campbell defined his work as a search for "the commonality
of
themes in world myths, pointing to a constant requirement in the human
psyche
for a centering in terms of deep principles." (The
Power of Myth xvi). Jung defined his concept of the
archetype as a
formula that is the result of "countless experiences of our ancestors.
They are, as it were, the psychic residue of numberless experiences of
the same
type." (quoted
in
Gordon ii). Both men felt that the experience of being human
can be
examined collectively across time, space, and culture, and that our
commonality
can be traced to the most primitive origins of the human consciousness,
where
the archetypal themes originate in modern men and women.

Archetypes can
be thought of as the precursor to conscious thought, existing in the
unconscious
mind as expressions of psychic happenings, but without a basis in the
physical
world. Humans didn't "invent" archetypes, but they do express
archetypes in the conscious world of art, literature, and religion.
Unconscious
energies are given form in this way. Therefore, the hero is not someone
"out
there" in the world; he is all of us and our need to grow and mature.

Hercules illustrates the hero's reconciliation of
the conscious/unconscious mind with one of his Labors.

Hercules kills
all but one head of the Hydra, which he places under a rock. Hercules
dips his
arrows in the poisonous blood of the Hydra. Later, Hercules kills a
centaur
suspected of seducing his wife with the same arrows. Before the centaur
dies,
he gives Hercules' wife some of his own now tainted blood, telling her
to use it
on Hercules if she ever suspects infidelity. She eventually dips a vest
in the
blood and sends it to Hercules, who puts it on and suffers such a
terrible
burning sensation that he kills himself rather than live with the pain.

What's
the lesson? Repression of unconscious forces, namely desire, will
eventually
invite disaster upon the psyche. The unslain head of the Hydra, whose
blood
eventually causes Hercules unbearable agony, represents a repressed
force in the
unconscious.

Heroes are
constructions; they are not real. All societies have similar hero
stories not
because they coincidentally made them up on their own, but because
heroes
express a deep psychological aspect of human existence. They can be
seen as a
metaphor for the human search of self-knowledge. In other words, the
hero shows
us the path to our own consciousness through his actions.

Jung called the process of forming a consciousness "individuation,"
which means the process by which we reconcile the conscious/unconscious
aspects
of the psyche (Davies,
et
al. 327-331). Thus, when the hero slays a monster, he is not
literally
killing it in the real world, but facing an aspect of the unconscious,
such as
lust or rage, in order to control that side of his being. The hero
stories can
be thought of as road maps to successful assimilation of the conscious,
rational
mind with the unconscious, animal mind.

The images of the hero
conquering death or returning from a successful battle provide the
restricted
conscious mind with new raw material into which to expand, thereby
forcing the
consumers of the hero stories to expand their conscious image of
themselves (Davies,
et.
al. 331). The hero stories are both a record of primitive
encounters with
the unconscious and a prompt for individuals to enter into the struggle
for
higher consciousness. Functioning in this way, heroes give men and
women hope
for such things as life after death, reprieve from suffering, and a
sense that
order rules their lives.

But what happens when, as
Nietzche said, "Dead are all the gods."? Is modern, scientific man
unable to experience myths and heroes as the ancients, as a guide and
symbol? Are we so attuned to the scientific dissection of the myths
that we fail to see
the spiritual aspects of them? Is the hero nothing more than a remnant
of the
aggressive energy projected by a society to justify its dominance over
less
war-like societies?

Campbell recognized the decline of the relevance of religion and
mythology in modern man's life. He laments that the bridge between
conscious/unconscious is severed with no more heroes to serve as guides
for
reconciliation. With no connection to the collective unconscious we all
share,
Campbell views the modern ideals of nationhood and lethargic religions
(propagated by hero images, among other things) as the new dragons to
be slain,
calling for the new, self-sacrificing heroes to step forward and bring
about an
annihilation of the extreme egoism of individuality that the loss of
myth has
brought about. (Thousand
Faces,
Power
of Myth)

Heroes are
a small part of a culture's mythology. They have been useful for
thousands of
years to the people for whom they serve as an idealized human, a sort
of "super"
person, capable of dealing with problems that surpass normal humans and
their
abilities. In this sense, heroes are:

Part
of the perceptual system of a
culture through which unfamiliar situations, originating either within
the
culture or outside it, are interpreted and fitted into old symbolic
molds. In
helping to pattern the relationships among basic beliefs, values, and
behaviors
that organize social interaction, [heroes] produce common social
understanding
of new social conditions (Breen
and
Corcoran 14)

In
a sentence, heroes contribute to
the society's necessary business of reproducing itself and its values.
For most
of history, religion has been the main force of reproducing the
dominant
society's traits by using mythical figures to illustrate moral and
societal
principles that help form a common social conception of such things as
death and
gender roles.

An excellent example of a modern hero performing this
social conditioning is Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.
Luke affirms our
belief in the power of mankind over technology's "evil" invasion of
our world. Computers were beginning to become fairly common in the late
1970's,
and many people had anxieties about their dominance in society; hence,
the hero
is refashioned into a triumph of human spirit over technology's evil
plans.

The hero is both an
expression and a tool of the hegemony of "a lived system of meanings
and
values--constitutive and constituting--which as they are experienced as
practices appear as reciprocally confirming. It thus constitutes a
sense of
reality for most people in the society, a sense of absolute because
experienced
reality beyond which it is very difficult for most members of the
society to
move, in most areas of their lives. It is, that is to say, in the
strongest
sense a 'culture', but a culture which has also to be seen as the lived
dominance and subordination of particular classes." (Williams
110)

In the context of describing individualism as a form of
control, Paolo Valesio says, "It [scene from a play] shows an
individual
who is frantically trying to individualize himself--that is, to become
a
hero--deriving courage for the enterprise by contemplating another
individual, a
famous one whose individuality has been institutionalized. A
paradoxical
process? Certainly, and as such particularly apt to illuminate the
basically
contradictory nature of the notion of 'individualism.'" (165)

Riane
Eisler, quoted by Penelope Prentice in her essay calling for women to
reclaim
their power in society as peacekeepers, says, "Ours is a species that
quite
literally lives by stories and images, by the myths--be they religious
or
secular--that tell us what is 'sacred,' 'natural,' and 'true.' And for
a long
time our conscious minds have been fettered by stories and images that
serve to
maintain a dominator system." She goes on to say, "the all too
familiar archetype of the hero as killer (all the way from Odysseus to
Rambo)
inculcates the minds of both men and women with the notion that
domination and
conquest--whether of women, other men, other nations, or nature--....
The
powerful archetype of woman as evil seductress (from Circe in the Odyssey
to Glen Close's role in Fatal Attraction) serves to
further justify
men's domination over women and the Feminine." (Prentice
2-3)

Every
successful society must have means by which it indoctrinates its
members into
the society's system of values and morals. One of the darker aspects of
the
hero is the role he plays in disseminating these values. If one looks
at the
heroes outlined in other parts of this site, one notices they are
mostly
European and all warriors, fighting and even killing to solve their
problems. They reflect the violent history of their respective
societies in conquering
other groups. The hero reflects the appearance and values of the
dominant
societal group and justifies the society's crimes against others by
showing the
hero's strength and violence resulting in the hero's people gaining
independence, usurping power, or obtaining any of a number of other
results
favorable to the dominant group, usually at the expense of marginalized
groups.
Obviously, this reinforces violence as the only means of gaining power;
in fact,
for persons living in a nation with violent heroes, it's hard to
imagine any
other way. And, unfortunately, being militarily dominant has
historically been
very effective in maintaining dominance for privileged groups.

In
today's global village, however, the hero's aggression and
nationalistic/ethnic symbolism are detrimental to cooperation among and
within nations. Breen and
Corcoran in "The Myth in the Discourse" say, "We can see that
other societies are culturally-constructed but we feel that our world
is not at
all the result of a historical process. As innocent myth-consumers, we
read our
myths as facts instead of culturally-constructed images." (25).
In
other words, Americans no more doubted John Wayne was going to beat
those "brainwashed
Japs" than Nazis believed they could and should commit genocide against
"filthy
Jews". The hero justifies the actions of a nation--but only if one is
part
of the group the hero represents.

Another aspect of the hero that is
potentially dangerous is the misapplication of his story in modern
media. In
Campbell's examination of the hero's life, he outlines three steps of
the hero:
separation-initiation-return. Campbell emphasizes the hero not only
conquers
the problem, but returns to society to "bestow boons on his fellow
people."
(Thousand
30). Ken Burke points out that in modern American cinema, the
fixation on
the conquering or initiation aspect of the hero has hidden the full
life of the
hero--that of maturation into leadership and wisdom--from viewers of
modern
myth. Ancient heroes would often return after their journeys to marry
and lead
a mature life, imparting their hard-won wisdom to their people. Burke
says the
lack of portrayal of this part of the hero's life in modern media leads
to an "arrested
adolescence" that "constantly avoids social responsibility and marital
commitment." (6).
The
result is an incomplete individuation process, with members of a
society caught
in a dangerous, "self-destructive individualism," (3)
unable or unwilling to reconcile the worlds of personal ego and
community that
Campbell believes the heroes were trying to show could be done. The
necessity
of heroes, Campbell felt, was to "pull together all these tendencies to
separation, to pull them together into some intention." (Power
134)